Implementing Lead Qualification Model Using ICP for Saas Products

Abstract

Lead qualification is a critical task for the marketing team as it brings the effectiveness to the campaigns run by sales teams. A well-qualified lead will assist the sales team to increase the conversion rate. There are few other factors like optimization of time, targeting the right kind of leads, and making the leads management process a more meaningful exercise with the support of the Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL). This paper discusses a lead qualification model for the business-to-business market. As the companies face stiff competition in the market place, it is common that they expand the search for potential leads which results in an increased number of leads entering the customer relationship management module. It is difficult for companies to track and engage potential leads without assessing the quality of such leads in the absence of a well-structured MQL process. It is more common now a day that most of the customer acquisitions are done through a well-targeted email campaigns. Therefore, the determined parameters have been chosen based on the earlier research done in this area and the nature of data to evaluate MQLs. Findings suggest that implicit data like the company’s size and explicit data like email opens, email clicks, and signups, could predict the probability of conversion. The research also throws light at less studied factors like the type of designation of the target executive contributing to the lead success. The paper proposes a lead scoring method which is a simplified version, yet effective, of the existing complex models available in this domain.

Keywords: Behavioral data, Characteristic data, Hot leads, Ideal Customer Profile, Lead qualification model, Lead scoring, Marketing Qualified Leads, Sales qualified leads, Sales conversions, Warm leads